Game of Thrones Review: Season 3, Episode 8 — “Second Sons”

With only a handful of episodes left in Season 3, Game of Thrones is kicking it into high gear, and while nothing game changing happened in Season 3, Episode 8 (“Second Sons”) — we’ll save that for Episode 9 — this well-paced hour was the calm before the storm. It had everything we’ve come to expect in the HBO series: humor, nudity, risky power plays, and more than a few WTF moments. Oh, and White Walkers.

So what went down in Westeros this week? Read on for Wetpaint Entertainment's review of the episode, and then rate it yourself!

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Arya tries to kill The Hound, but he’s The Hound — did you really think Arya was going to just sneak up on him and kill him in his sleep? Nope. In fact, let’s face it: Arya needs The Hound, as he so subtly reminds her. Westeros is a dangerous place for little girls. Besides, he plans on taking her back to her mother and brother... for a handsome reward, of course. So Arya and The Hound set off to crash the Frey wedding. As much as we’d like to think this is going to lead to a feel-good family reunion, this is Game of Thrones — nothing is feel-good.

Back in Yunkai, Dany is negotiating with Titan's Bastard, who is the commander of a sellsword company called the Second Sons. The Second Sons have been contracted to face Dany and her army (oh, and her dragons), but as Dany reminds him, “A fortnight, I had no army. A year ago I had no dragons.” However, Titan’s Bastard isn’t afraid of the Khaleesi, so he, along with two other officers, draw coins to decide which one of them will kill Dany. The lucky sellswordman? Daario Naharis.

But sexy Daario had other plans. He didn’t want to kill Dany; he wanted to join her. It looks like someone developed a bit of a crush on the Khaleesi — and we’d be lying if we said these two didn’t look good together. So Daario kills his commanders and pledges his allegiance — and all of the Second Sons army — to Dany.

Meanwhile, Melisandre has brought Gendry to Stannis, where the plan is to kill King Robert’s bastard. “What’s one bastard boy against a kingdom?” Stannis asks his former comrade Davos, who asks Stannis to spare his “blood” Gendry. He doesn’t believe the blood of the king is as powerful as Melisandre has made him believe.

But it turns out Melisandre had other plans for Gendry... like taking his blood with leeches to prove her point to Davos. We have no idea what the heck Melisandre is up to, but we’re just hoping Gendry makes it out of this ordeal alive. (Although, we’d take shirtless Joe Dempsie anyday.)

Back in King’s Landing, Sansa is preparing for her nuptials to Tyrion. Let’s just say, neither of them are happy about this, but at least Tyrion is doing his best to reassure Sansa that even though this wasn’t his idea, he wasn’t going to let anyone hurt her.

Cue Tyrion’s nervous humor: “You won’t be a prisoner after today. You’ll be my wife... I suppose that’s a different kind of prison.”

Before the wedding, Cersei reminds Margaery about how “The Rains of Castamere” came to be. She gives Joffrey’s future wife a history lesson on House Reyne, the people Tywin slaughtered for betraying him and the Lannisters. It looks like Cersei trying to let Margaery know she’s still the H.B.I.C. in King’s Landing — and she can see what kind games the little Tyrell is playing.

And now for the most awkward wedding in Westeros history. For starters, Joffrey walks Sansa down the aisle (you know, since he killed her father and all). Then, he steals Tyrion’s stool at the altar, making for one sadly humorous exchange. Poor Sansa had to kneel so Tyrion could put the cloak over her.

At the reception, everyone is miserable — and we mean everyone. Loras doesn’t quite like the idea of being his sister’s father-in-law, Tywin orders Tyrion to consummate his marriage to Sansa, and Sansa, well, she’s pretty much traumatized from the whole ordeal. Of course, Joffrey’s smug douchebag-ery isn’t helping matters much. He commands a bedding ceremony, but after a very drunk Tyrion threatens to cut off his junk, let’s just say the ceremony is put on hold. But Tyrion takes his new bride to bed anyway — with the help of a hefty amount of wine. However, just as Sansa begins to take off her dress, Tyrion stops her. He tells her that he won’t sleep in her bed — at least, not until she wants him to. What happens if she never wants him to? “And now my Watch begins,” drunkenly says Tyrion.

Lastly, Sam and Gilly are still on the run, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have time to strike up a campfire and discuss baby names. Sam decides this would be the perfect opportunity to name Gilly’s son — but unfortunately, she doesn’t really know any boy names... well, other than her father’s name, and Sam’s not going to let that one fly.

But their family bonding time is cut short when a white walker comes to feast on the baby. At first, it looked like Sam wasn’t a match for the creepy supernatural white walker, but when he saw Gilly and her son were in danger, he lept into action — yeah, that’s a first — and defeated the creature. There wasn’t much time to celebrate, as Sam, Gilly and the baby (Christopher? George? The name is still TBD.) make a run for it.

So what did you think of “Second Sons”? Sound off in the comments!

Crystal Bell is an editor at Wetpaint Entertainment and our resident fan-girl for all things Pretty Little Liars, The Vampire Diaries, Game of Thrones and Once Upon a Time. She speaks fluent geek. Follow her on Twitter and Google+!